God the Father, sinning? You have an annoying habit of putting your words in my mouth. I suppose that might be indicative of your determinism and your lack of free will/moral choice, but I’m inclined to think it has more to do with dishonesty and/or delusion, and/or a lack of self-awareness.

Keep in mind, Tom, that when you experience fear (your “scary” feeling), it often has little to do with whatever you’ve consciously perceived to be the cause (e.g., Fred’s “precept”?). Fear is generated when stimuli subconsciously trigger your subcortical amygdala, which results in behavior, feeling, and then conscious interpretation—you don’t run b/c you’re afraid, you’re afraid b/c you run.

Now some here may read that and say, “Aha, we do lack free will!” But I prefer to think of these biological realities in this way: While the primitive subcortical and subconscious motivational/emotional neural mechanisms do indeed have tremendous influence on our behavior and conscious perceptions, we nevertheless can consciously and willfully discern, at least to some degree, the influence of these neural mechanisms and exercise at least some conscious and willful control (downward causation).

So anyway Tom, here’s Sigmoid Fred’s tough love diagnosis: Fred’s “precepts” are not what’s triggering your fear—you have other issues. Grow up, be more humble, become more self-aware of the influence of the subconscious primitive neural mechanisms on your conscious perceptions, and realize that you do indeed have at least some free will and that you can choose to be morally responsible (downward causation).

Sigmoid Fred